Feb 15, 2024
This will be a review of the first volume.
Unfortunately while this story has interesting elements and a refreshing perspective, it suffers from being overly dry and over reliant on an abundance of traits better realised in other series.
I don’t like to be overly critical unnecessarily so I’ll start with the character of Sasaki, who provides a unique perspective in that he isn’t entirely interesting. It’s not a negative in this case as I enjoyed for the most part his middle aged mindset and pragmatic approach to what was happening to him. He never gets too high or low and his desire for a
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comfortable and stress free life is quite relatable. It is however his interactions with others that drag this story down.
My first major criticism is about the developments in the normal world. I will not spoil it but at about the halfway point in the novel, things become more fantastical and feel out of left field. I’m sure it will get further development in later volumes but I don’t find myself very much interested and don’t think it fits into the story well. It isn’t so much the fantasy element in itself that bothered me but the way it is introduced and how it is not very well explained. If this ties into the magic of the other world then I’ll take back this criticism but for now I see no evidence that it wasn’t just some random plot development that didn’t do much for the character of Sasaki or the story.
The other part of this novel is the isekai part and even there it lacks in too many areas. The world building is bare bones and the characters so far don’t provide much in the way of character to keep me invested. Their interactions with Sasaki all follow a similar level of deference and it is largely devoid of any happenings that challenge Sasaki. It isn’t till the end where a possible thread of conflict is hinted at but even then it seems to resolve itself rather quickly.
One final point that I see brought up is that female characters are only represented in this story as underaged girls whose features or cuteness are their primary feature. None offer anything much to the first volume and I see their role following similar trajectories seen in other light novels.
I realise this is only the first novel and is probably structured to set the stage for events to come but in spite of the meaty size of this volume, its flavour is rather bland. The meatier parts that I enjoyed were surrounded by too much fat that I felt too hard to chew on. What had potential to serve Kobe beef instead served up chuck steak.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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